Month: April 2017

Earrings

A Columbian white-tailed deer doe with tags in her ears

The green tags in this rain-soaked doe’s ears suggest she was part of the third wave of Columbian white-tailed deer that were captured at Julia Butler Hansen National Wildlife Refuge and brought to Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. She was hanging out with a group of other does from that transfer, and more importantly, their fawns, part of the reason their status has improved from endangered to threatened.

Hunter in Green

A great blue heron hunts for voles in the rain in a sea of green grass at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in Ridgefield, Washington on March 26, 2017. Original: _DSC2899.ARW

When I visited Ridgefield a week ago I decided to only shoot with the new Sony camera and the adapter that lets me attach my Canon telephotos. I was expecting to have to rely on manual focus but the autofocus did work sometimes, although not consistently enough for this to be a combination I’ll use often for photos. For these shots I used manual focus, although I was still learning how to do it. I’d normally like a little more depth of field in a shot like this, especially to keep more of the pouring rain in focus, but by shooting wide open I was able to take more of an abstract and turn the grass that surrounded the hunting heron into a sea of green.

With the heron standing tall, you get more of a sense of the large meadow it was hunting in. I had no idea herons hunted in meadows until I moved to the Northwest, but all the voles that live here are well aware.

I didn’t have time to take any 4K videos of this heron, it struck into the ground and walked off when it came up empty, but I did take a few videos of some animals sitting in the pouring rain, including a bald eagle, a white-tailed deer, and some snipe. I’ve never edited video but I’ll see if I can learn enough to put a few clips up in the next month or so.

📷: Sony A6500 | Canon 500mm | Canon 1.4X
🗓️: March 26, 2017

A great blue heron stands in a meadow in the pouring rain

Root for the Underdog

A picture of our dog Ellie next to a sticker that says 'Root for the Underdog'

I don’t know how much of it is her advancing age and how much the warming weather, but I’ve noticed Ellie’s breathing has been a little more labored lately on her walks. For all that she still gave me a couple of long walks last weekend, but I wasn’t surprised this morning that even though she went as far south as normal after visiting the dog park, she only went a couple of blocks east before wanting to head back north towards home. I thought she was tired out but as we prepared to take the last turn towards home she indicated she wanted to continue going north. The next block she turned east towards home but kept wanting to go east and east and east until I made her turn north to avoid a busy street. We doubled back along Klickitat Street before heading to the park once more, then she was ready to head home, after a full hour and a half walk.

It was still breezy this morning after high winds much of yesterday and my sinuses were bothering me a bit, but what a lovely way to spend the morning, me and the pup!

I took this picture of her on Klickitat, the section of the street we walk on that takes us to the park is closed to vehicle traffic except for people with driveways on the street, and this little post blocks vehicles from entering. Someone put a sticker on the post that says “Root for the Underdog” so I made Ellie pose for a quick picture. The new camera is working a treat for quick pictures like this, just a snapshot to remind me of our walks, it is so lightweight that I take it with me a lot even though I only occasionally take pictures.

You Want Me To Do What Now?

Our cat Sam sits in front of an orange wall on March 9, 2017. Original: _DSC0044.ARW

Another picture from when I was first testing out my new camera, I put Sam on the stool for some test shots to make sure the camera was functional. I love the expression on his face as he leaned forward with his ears swiveled in opposite directions, listening both to the cats who were running about on either side of him and me giving him posing directions.